jer979

I’m in the midst of a multi-week training course led by the team at Apogee HK about Making Meaningful Work. One of the themes they stress, particularly in identifying and creating one’s authentic narrative, is the competitive advantage represented by an outlook of curiosity and wonder. We’ve shared a bunch of articles on the topic, like this one and it’s come in handy during the kick-off of Operation Florence. Yesterday, I had the first of the 30 scheduled interviews thus far and it went even...

I’m losing faith in the economic and financial leadership of the USA. It makes me sad because, overall, I think the US is a force for positive in the world. But, with the changing of the rules and the “exceptions” for the FDIC around SVB, the recession created by the Fed in response to the inflation which they created, and the government’s all-out war on crypto, which is going to allow some other country to become the financial superpower of the next generation, I’m losing faith. It’s as pred...

Yesterday was the first day of outreach on Operation Florence. I contacted 33 people. Of them, 20 said they’d be willing to be part of the research study. From that group, so far we have scheduled 13 meetings. I’d consider that a successful day 1.

The first step in “Operation Florence,” more commonly known as “Career Reinvention” according to contributor Rob Rager who has studied Strategic Foresight in the past is this: Frame the Research Question What I am trying to find out by conducting this process is:What are the non-obvious emerging markets that will explode in the next half-decade?The specific questions that I currently have listed to ask the “Horizon Scanning Dream Team” are the following:What are 3-5 things that few people thi...

The key to the success of Operation Florence, my career reinvention process, is to be creative. It’s to be open to new possibilities and new opportunities. That is a skill that, sadly, becomes increasingly difficult as we age. In this TED talk, George Land explains how curiosity about all things can generate the brain waves necessary for creativity. That’s the plan. Be curious about the world as others experience it.

My brother sent me a great quote the other day. Something along the lines of: “In a world obsessed with speed, slowness is a superpower.” I like to read passages from Thich Nhat Hahn’s book “How to Sit.” Today’s was called “The Essential Practice.” I don’t have it word for word in front of me at the moment, but it basically said that the point of meditation is just to learn how to sit peacefully right now and not get caught up in ideas, feelings, or thoughts. That’s the pratice. Slow is the s...

My team at RDX Works knew that I loved naming things. It’s a trick I learned from an earlier boss. “Give it a name,” he would say. That would help rally people around the vision. So, I did. With names like “Sparta,” “Troy,” “Greenhouse,” and “Moby.” Now, my project is on career re-invention, as I outlined yesterday. I am going to call this “Operation Florence,” as this is about a Renaissance. I’ve been overwhelmed so far by the response from my network-and I have barely even begun the promoti...

I’m going to explore the next trends and markets for where I can best add value. For over 25 years, I’ve made a career of finding new frontiers, aligning opportunities with my capabilities and passion, and then exploring them. Sometimes profitably. For the past 7 years, I’ve been in crypto. When I started, no one had heard of Bitcoin. Now, after nearly 2 years, my formal mission at RDX Works, supporting the growth of the Radix decentralized public network, has come to an end. During the worst...

About a year ago, I had a conversation with a Crypto OG who is now a VC. I was telling him about Radix. His answer was “look, the EVM has already won.” https://twitter.com/LoganJastremski/status/1632748845544230912 But it hasn’t. It’s still so early. www.radixdlt.com

Right now, crypto is in a tough spot. On the one hand, there is a horrific user-experience, millions of dollars worth of hacks, scalability issues, and confusing security models. On the other hand, the SEC and the anti-crypto forces in government and finance are on the offensive and feeling empowered, as Former Chief, SEC Office of Enforcement, John Reed Stark tweeted: https://twitter.com/JohnReedStark/status/1631828255933169666 We’re solidly in Phase 2 of Schopenhauer’s 3 Phases. Gradually, ...

Someone on my team said this to me the other day and I thought it was quite profound. Obviously, winners don’t enjoy losing, but they see losing as a necessary step to winning more. A chance to learn, to grow, to get feedback, to “watch the tape.” We all have setbacks in life. We all have things that don’t go as planned. Recognizing those moments as the gifts that they are is what separates winners from everyone else.

Over the past few months, in particular, the marketing team at RDX Works has morphed into a really high-performing, high-achieving entity. It’s been wonderful to watch it happen. I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the elements of what contributes to high-performing teams. You certainly need the infrastructure, both technical and knowledge (e.g. templates for briefs and disaster recovery docs). You also need a solid vision and strategy and a way to drive them (OKRs). But the secret sauce i...